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Kirk Gibson brought his competitive spirit from the baseball diamond to the youth hockey rink to help the Grosse Pointe Spartans find success on the ice. turn Grosse Pointe into a youth hockey powerhouse in the state of Michigan. The Spartans went on to win five consecutive state titles from 2001-05, two of which came during Gibson's involvement. Geoff Welsher, who was at Michigan State University when Gibson was an AllAmerican wide receiver, remembers how intense of a competitor he was. Yet he got to see another side when his son Geoffrey played youth hockey for Gibson. "He just had a way with kids," Welsher says. "It was just a real fondness that he had to make an impression on kids and to put a brick in the foundation of them to hopefully make another Kirk Gibson-type, high-performing player." However, Gibson says his youth hockey coaching philosophy went back to his days as a young ballplayer when his coaches gave him one opportunity after another. "Ultimately in baseball I had an opportunity to reach my potential," says Gibson, a career .268 hitter who had a knack for coming up big in the clutch, including with the Detroit Tigers during the 1984 World Series. "Everyone kept giving me an opportunity when I didn't do well, or I failed, and they built my confidence up. "For me, I felt I took an oath as a hockey coach that I had to help those people and instill confidence in them. My goal in hockey, or whatever I do, is to give the people that we can touch the opportunity to make themselves better and reach their potential. It may not be in hockey, it may not be in baseball, but in life." Gibson stressed mental toughness to his Spartans squad, just as his mentor and for- "The kids are younger, but it is the same. It's all about motivation and getting them to buy in. It's all about putting your guys in position to succeed." mer coach Sparky Anderson did during his playing days in Detroit. McIntyre, who credits Gibson with molding him as a young coach, believes that Gibson manages in the big leagues the same way he coached in Grosse Pointe. "I have to think he's probably going through a lot of the same stuff with what we went through with Squirt hockey players," says McIntyre, who now coaches at the University Liggett School in Grosse Pointe Woods. "It's just a lot bigger and a lot more zeros on it." Gibson, in his third year as Arizona's manager, first started managing in the majors while he was still coaching youth hockey. He served two seasons as an assistant coach for the Tigers before becoming a bench coach for the Diamondbacks in 2007. Three years later he took over the reins and became the first first-year manager to take a last-place team one year to the playoffs the next season. The 1988 National League Most Valuable Player says coaching youth hockey was certainly similar to coaching in MLB. "The kids are younger, but it is the same," Gibson says. "It's all about motivation and getting them to buy in. It's all about putting your guys in position to succeed." Regardless if it's youth hockey or professional baseball, the games are about much more than simply winning and losing. "It's about the game. It's not about me. It's not about you or one player," Gibson says. "It's about the game of baseball. It's about the game of hockey. It's about who we are collectively in society. How can we become givers, not takers? "Those good guidelines and principles are created through being a good teammate, and it spills over to productivity in our society." N —Kirk Gibson USAHOCKEYMAGAZINE.COM April/May. 2013 31